Next Season Will Be A Honeymoon For One Parra Player

FEW Parramatta fans would regard this season without Nathan Hindmarsh and under new coach Ricky Stuart as a honeymoon – but 2014 has already been designated by one star Eel as being exactly that.

Wigan forward Lee Mossop walked off Wembley at the weekend a Challenge Cup winner and his thoughts immediately turned to his new destination, Sydney’s west.

“I get married on December 21st. It’s in Lancashire. It looks like Australia is going to be the honeymoon,” he said.

“I’ll have two days off and it will be into the pre-season training. That’ll be a good honeymoon, won’t it?

“If I’m in the World Cup squad, the final’s on November 30 and then I have a few weeks off.”

The fact his career in England only has a couple of months to run left him in a reflective mood in the famous Wembley dressing sheds.

“I’ve just been sat there for five minutes, never spoke to anyone, just trying to soak it in,” he said, “because this could be the last time I do this for a number of years with this group of people, if ever.”

Mossop wasn’t even aware that former team-mate Gareth Hock would not be joining him.

“I didn’t know, I had no clue,” he said. “But if he’s not going, he’ll have his reasons. You’ve got to do what’s best for you. If he’s got family over here, that would have a part in it.”

He said he was unsure what a current team-mate, Sam Tomkins, had planned. “As a player,Sam’s a closed book,” he said.

“Whatever team he’s at, be it Wigan or over there, they’ll be lucky to have a player like him. I’m provileged to play alongside him.

“If that was the last time we play together, then he’s special.”

Wigan went into Saturday’s game as overwhelming favourites. “I was thinking about it during the week, what it would mean to win, and I think I was more scared of losing, to be honest,” said Mossop.

“To have this as the last chance to win with my best group of mates (and lose) would have been horrible.”

Mossop said Wigan great Andy Farrell told the players “we are the best team out of the two of us and we were the only ones who could lose the game.”